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Archive for the ‘accidents’ Category

Update on Gulf Oil Slicks

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Our oil spill expert, Cheryl Anderson, has been monitoring the Gulf of Mexico slick reports, and has provided the following update:

Excerpt from a NOLA.com article below published 4-5 hours after yesterday’s Coast Guard media briefing regarding the source of the latest slick in Louisiana state waters :

A state official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a continuing Coast Guard investigation, said the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries traced the emulsified oil on the west side of the river to its apparent source at West Delta Block 117. He said tests by a state-contracted lab confirmed that was the source of the oil.

Wildlife and Fisheries officials found the source of the oil Monday evening and encountered workers in a boat trying to restore a cap on the well using a remotely operated submarine.

There was a USCG Media Briefing at 2 pm local time Monday [4-5 hours before the NOLA.com article was published]. The briefing confirmed that the 100-mile sheen on Saturday was not petroleum, just sediments from water disturbances.

With regard to the most recent slick, the Coast Guard said:

–no source had been identified,

–no active spill incidents had been identified,

–spill had been Federalized,

–testing showed that it was Louisiana crude, and

–LSU was still working on the tests to see if the oil matched the Macondo well or any recorded previous spill incident.

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More on the Deepwater Horizon BOP Forensics Testing Dispute

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Per the Platts Oilgram report that we posted on 17 March, here is the complete court filing..

These are the additional tests recommended by BP’s consultant Ralph Linenberger:

  • Removal and forensic analysis of each annular element
  • Hydraulic signature testing of the annular preventer operator and ram preventers operators
  • Disassembly and inspection of the annular preventer and ram preventer bonnets
  • Laser scanning of (i) the entire BOP wellbore; (ii) the upper annular packer and upper annular cap; (iii) the inside of the riser kink; and (iv) the wellbore-facing surfaces of the casing shear ram bonnets
  • Hydraulic circuitry pressure test
  • ST lock circuit confirmation
  • Solenoid pie connector pin measurement and corresponding female receptacle analysis.

Is anyone else surprised that some (all?) of these tests hadn’t already been conducted? That would seem to be the biggest revelation from the BP court filing.

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Real time monitoring is critical in the air and beneath the sea

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , on March 19, 2011| 1 Comment »

Air France flight 447 went down June 1, 2009, amid an intense, high-altitude thunderstorm

Specialists are launching a fourth undersea search effort next week for the plane’s so-called black boxes, or flight recorders.

‘We are convinced if we find the black boxes we’ll be able to reconstruct what really happened on this tragic flight Air France 447,’ Enders said. Airbus officials say the search is a company priority.

Air France and Airbus will finance the estimated $12.5 million cost of the new search, in which three advanced underwater robots will scour the mountainous ocean floor between Brazil and western Africa, in depths of up to 4,000 meters (13,120 feet).

Already $27.5 million has been spent on three previous search attempts that failed to find Flight 447’s voice and data recorders.  Daily Mail

Aviation safety proponents have argued that it’s time to start replacing black boxes with satellite systems that stream critical data real time. Similarly, as we have previously suggested, it’s time for real time monitoring of wellhead and BOP pressures and functions. This relatively inexpensive improvement would support testing and maintenance programs, improve our understanding of BOP performance, assist with well control decisions, and facilitate investigations.

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API to establish Offshore Safety Center

Posted in accidents, tagged , on March 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

“After extensive review and development, the oil and natural gas industry has approved the creation of the Center for Offshore Safety, which will promote the highest level of safety for offshore operations, through an effective program that addresses management practices, communication and teamwork, and which relies on independent, third-party auditing and verification,” said Jack Gerard, API president and CEO. “The board directed API to further develop the operational framework and timeline for the center—working with other industry stakeholders—to enhance industry safety and environmental performance.”API Announcement

Comments:

  1. Encouraging decision.
  2. Organizational details will be critical.
  3. It’s good that the center will be affiliated with the standards function and located in Houston (not Washington).
  4. Member support must be consistent and sustained.
  5. Operating companies that are not API members should be involved.
  6. Non-US companies should be welcome.
  7. Contractors and service companies should be involved.
  8. The focus should not be solely on deepwater operations.  Most major accidents have occurred on the shelf, and most of the contributing factors to Macondo were not deepwater related.
  9. A comprehensive, verified international incident data base is critical.

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Déjà vu?

Posted in accidents, tagged , on March 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As was the case with Macondo, great minds have already figured out what went wrong at Fukushima and who is to blame.

Here’s what they tell us. Sound familiar?

  1. The company cut corners to save money!
  2. There wasn’t enough government oversight!
  3. Management failed to properly assess the risks!
  4. The regulator is corrupt!
  5. Warnings were ignored!
  6. The operation is not safe in that environment!
  7. The company and industry have a poor safety culture!
  8. Our country’s regulations are much more stringent!
  9. It couldn’t happen here!
  10. The threat is spreading; people in Panic-stan are in danger!

I’m no nuclear power advocate, but it would be nice if everyone focused on fixing the problem, protecting those who are truly endangered, and restroring some sense of normalcy in Japan. There will be plenty of time to investigate and find fault.

By the way, do you remember the fear mongering about Macondo oil on East Coast beaches?

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Deepwater Horizon BOP Examination – incomplete?

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

From Platts Oilgram News:

BP seeks Macondo BOP access to perform tests Washington—BP is seeking access to the Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer so it can run tests the company says the joint investigation has failed to perform. BP filed a motion in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans March 9, asking Judge Carl Barbierto allow the company access to the BOP after the joint investigation being run by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, is finished with it. The BOP, a five-story stack of valves, sat atop BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexicoand failed to suppress a blowout April 20,2010. The blowout killed 11 workers fromTransocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig and triggered a massive oil spill. The joint investigation, under the supervision of the Department of Justice, has been conducting tests on the BOP at a NASA facility in Michoud, Louisiana. DNV Columbus washired to conduct the forensic tests and BP,Transocean, and Cameron, which made the BOP, have been observing.The test results are supposed to be delivered to the joint investigation by March 20. Hearings on the BOP are scheduled for the week of April 4. In its motion, BP said it submitted to the Joint Investigation Team a list of highly technical tests it felt should be conducted, but that the final list of approved tests did not include several of the items BP and other companies had requested.“BP, however, believes that performance of these forensic activities will add value to an analysis of why the BOP did not work as intended on April 20, and recommends they be completed,” the company said in its court brief.— Gary Gentile

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Deepwater Horizon – The Movie?

Posted in accidents, Uncategorized, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Summit Entertainment, Participant Media and Imagenation Abu Dhabi, have announced that they’ve acquired the film rights to a 2010 New York Times article on the BP oil spill.Forbes

This is the excellent New York Times piece referenced in the quote.

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Good Opinion Piece by Loren Steffy (Houston Chronicle)

Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Jason Anderson, Dale Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Gordon Jones, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto and Adam Weise.

They are the 11 workers who died when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Their names need to be stated, to be remembered, because they were clearly forgotten as the industry gathered for the CERAWeek conference in Houston this week. Houston Chronicle

Comment: The sad truth is that the Macondo tragedy would have received very little attention if the fatalities were not followed by a major oil spill.  There would have been no moratorium, no National Commission, no Chemical Safety Board review, and no Justice Department investigation.   The last major multi-fatality accident in the Gulf, the South Pass 60 B fire that killed seven workers in 1989, received almost no national attention.  A minor spill offshore California receives more coverage than a multi-fatality event in the Gulf.

When every casualty, every gas release, every well control incident, and every structural failure is fully and publicly reviewed, we will be well on our way toward preventing not only injuries and fatalities, but also spills and environmental damage.

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While we were gone

Posted in accidents, cuba, drilling, energy, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The tragedy in Japan has added yet more uncertainty to nervous energy markets:
Japan will likely need more imported oil and natural gas due to closures of nuclear reactors caused by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, but volumes can’t be calculated accurately as it is unclear how much industrial output has been affected by the disaster and how long power nuclear and thermal power plants will remain closed. Wall Street Journal
It’s much too early to gauge how the nuclear power industry, which some have touted as a model for safety achievement, will be affected.
    Standards news and discussion:
    Offshore Safety Institute?
    The CEOs of major oil and gascompanies will meet March 18 to decide how to proceed with the formation of a US offshore drilling safety institute, William Reilly, the co-chair of the National Oil Spill Commission, said March 8. Platts Oilgram News
    New twist in Cuban drilling drama – Petrobras relinquishes interest
    Marco Aurelio Garcia, foreign policy adviser to President Dilma Rousseff, told reporters in Havana exploratory work off Cuba’s northern coast had not shown good results and that Brazil wanted to concentrate on its own oil fields.
    Since BP’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico last April, the risks of offshore oil drilling have been a hot topic. One place it isn’t questioned much is Brazil, whose oil production industry is one of the fastest-growing in the world because of vast new deepwater oil reservoirs discovered in the past five years.
    Mexican Deepwater Update (Platts Oilgram News)
    Pemex has just begun to explore in Mexico’s Gulf of Mexico waters deeper than 1,000 feet, but 28 billion undiscovered barrels of oilequivalent are thought to exist in that area, some of which borders US territorial waters. Pemex officials said the company is forging a development plan for its first deepwater field, Lakach, located northeast of the state of Veracruz in about 3,200 feet of water. First production is expected in 2015.
    Environmentalists are furious at a proposal by the petroleum company Shell to start exploration drilling off one of Western Australia’s most treasured reefs. Ningaloo Reef off the north-west coast, has been nominated for World Heritage listing.

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“No spill response improvements since Valdez.” WRONG!

Posted in accidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ohmsett

The seemingly endless crowing about the absence of improvements in spill response capabilities is a story by itself. This topic warrants a full discussion when time permits, but for now I’ll offer a few comments and observations:

  • The Macondo offshore spill response was unprecedented and impressive, and the lessons learned will be applied to improve spill response preparedness around the world.
  • Those who claim that there has been no progress in spill preparedness either have no real interest in spill response or have not been paying attention.
  • Even in the lean years following the Valdez oil spill research surge, the much-maligned MMS continued to conduct important burning, dispersant, remote sensing, and mechanical cleanup studies, while upgrading and expanding the use of the nation’s major oil spill response test facility – Ohmsett (pictured above).  This research was effectively applied during the Macondo spill and smaller, less publicized incidents. Click here for a nice summary of the program and here for the very extensive list of projects and links to the reports. Domestic and international partnerships, most notably with Norway and Canada, helped sustain this important research.
  • Despite periodic attempts to reprogram Ohmsett funding, MMS was able to continue to support this outstanding research facility.  Learn more about Ohmsett.
  • During the blowout, the networks featured the snake oil salesmen and hucksters who peddle super-sorbents and oil-consuming substances during every major spill.  That time should have been given to response experts and serious oil spill researchers.
  • Former industry executives with no real spill response experience trumpeted, without any documentation, claims of extraordinary recovery rates elsewhere (usually in places where no one gets to watch). Their favorite concept, supertanker response systems, received a lot of air time until the “Whale” tanker-skimmer flopped as predicted.
  • You would think that Kevin Costner’s very good separator (tested at Ohmsett in 1999!) was the only advance in response technology. Perhaps more movie and TV stars should get involved with spill response. Charlie (Oil) Sheen would no doubt attract interest to the cause. 🙂

NWS Earle Executive Officer Claudill, Kevin Costner, and Ohmsett Manager Bill Schmidt (1999 photo at Ohmsett)

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